


better things than this

by jdphoenix



Series: terragenesis [4]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-10-11 05:34:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10456398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: “We need to talk. Privately.”“More than a decade of silence andnowyou wanna talk?”





	

**Author's Note:**

> While this takes place in the terragenesis 'verse, it doesn't quite comply with the first chapter of [and we'll be running again](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6770362/chapters/15474994), so you can consider it an AU of that.
> 
> OR you can simply consider it a missing scene from 4,722 Hours, completely separate from my existing 'verse. Either works.

Will lets out a sigh that stirs the sand next to his sleeping bag. It was bound to happen one of these days: him waking up first. Jemma’s barely slept since they left the caves, always waking up long before him and shaking him awake when she can’t stand to wait anymore. She’s so damn eager to get to the portal site, practically vibrating with excitement even when she’s exhausted, like a kid on the drive to DisneyWorld.

He knew it’d catch up with her eventually and had a feeling from the zombie way she was walking around before bed last night that today would be the day. But she won’t thank him if he lets her sleep in any later than she already has, so reluctantly, he reaches blindly for her shoulder while he wipes the sleep from his eyes.

“Rise and shine, sleeping beauty.”

He turns after he says it because she’s not rising or shining - she really must be out of it - but it’s not her he looks at.

Death is crouched next to her.

Will’s on his knees in a heartbeat (he thinks, anyway, damn thing’s going so fast all he feels is an ache like it’s not there at all), one hand wrapped around the hilt of his machete, the other still on Jemma’s shoulder.

Death is touching her too, playing with her hair. It’s taken off one of the gloves, which strikes him as a bad sign. It also strikes him as kinda horrible/hilarious (is there a word for both? Jemma would know) because between the change in size between the arm and the bulbous suit sleeve and the way the hand’s decayed in the last decade, it looks pathetically weak. Almost gives him the idea he could kill It no trouble at all.

He pushes the thought away, knowing it’ll only get him and Jemma killed.

“Jemma,” he says, voice tight with fear and anger and a feeling like if he relaxes even a little he’s gonna vomit. “ _Jemma_.” Mounting terror makes him reckless. He drops his focus away from It to grasp her chin, twisting her head away from Its brittle touch and shaking her. “Wake up!”

“She’s dreaming,” It says. “Too deeply for you to reach her.” Their eyes meet for a fraction of a second. The visor’s up so he can see the hollow eyes, matted hair, the gaping wound in the side of the head that would’ve killed any human. (That’s how Will knew Austin was gone, when his body got back up after that. He feels like he’s being taunted with it.)

It looks down at Jemma again, reaches for her. Will tries to pull her out of reach, but It’s too close.

“Good dreams, if that helps,” It says, drawing Austin’s fingers through her tangled hair. As if to prove the point, Jemma hums blissfully in her sleep and turns into Its touch.

There are words on the tip of Will’s tongue - a demand It let her go or leave them alone, or just one of the thousand curses he’s been waiting years to hurl at the thing - but It beats him to the punch. “We need to talk. Privately.”

A hollow laugh erupts from him. “More than a decade of silence and _now_ you wanna talk?”

The lines on Austin’s face grow deeper. “Jemma cannot be allowed to leave this world.”

Fury swells in Will’s chest. That It would _dare_ to keep her here when anyone with eyes can see she deserves so much more, belongs back in the real world with her friends and family and the goddamn _sun_. That It would dare say her name at all, let alone like that. ( _Will_ doesn’t even say her name like that; he’s been careful every time _not_ to.)

There’s only one thing Will can say to such … such damned _audacity_ : “Fuck you.”

It doesn’t seem phased at all by the insult. “I have seen her future.”

Will laughs again, this time on purpose. He’ll buy a lot of shit, but a psychic alien? No way.

Austin’s head tips in the helmet. Like a bird. Like an animal. (Like a predator.) “You do not believe me.”

Will shifts in the sand, pulling Jemma’s head onto one of his knees and slipping the machete from his belt. He rests its tip in the sand by her hip, ready to bring it up if It tries to touch her again. “I can honestly say if you told me the sky was blue, I’d call it red.”

One side of Austin’s mouth, the side of the gash, lifts. The other side doesn’t move at all; maybe he really did do some damage all those years ago. “I was once like you. A man with a small but fulfilling life. People I cared for. A family. A wife.” (Will does not like the way Death looks at her while it talks.) “But all of that was stolen from me, and I was changed, turned into what you consider a monster.”

Like It needs to remind him, the skin on Austin’s neck moves, swells like the ocean when some deep sea creature swims just beneath the surface. Will grips Jemma tighter.

“The Kree, an alien race, descended on my world, transformed me into a weapon to be turned against their enemies. And when I turned against them instead…” It opens Austin’s arms, taking in the still desert. “You are not the only prisoner here, Will.”

“You looking for sympathy? Because I’m having trouble feeling any for the guy who’s wearing the man he killed like he’s some Leatherface wannabe.”

Austin’s mouth quirks again. “What happened to me? Will happen to her if she returns to Earth. She’s safe here, you both are.”

“You’re full of shit.”

“I am only trying to protect her,” It says, but the words are off, like It’s having trouble making that decaying throat work right.

“She belongs on Earth. No matter what’s gonna happen to her there, it’s better than being here. She’ll have her friends and her family and her small but fulfilling life.” He spits Death’s words back at it, then jerks his chin towards the light spot on the horizon, the one that never grows any brighter or darker. “The light of day.”

Austin’s dead eyes bore into him. He’s made Death angry. Good.

And then something impossible happens. The sky, the desert, the whole world, goes dark around him. Real, true blackness, the kind Will hasn’t seen in years. His heart pounds in animal fear. He can’t see Jemma.

“Jemma?” he calls. “Jemma!”

There’s light - not too far, maybe twenty yards - it’s a room. Everything’s dark leading up to it and everything’s dark inside except what might be a bed or a table (or a sacrificial altar, some primitive part of his brain puts in), that part’s lit up so bright it hurts to look directly at it. But he has to because on it, stripped and tied down, is Jemma.

“Jemma!” He sprints to her side. She’s fighting and struggling. Pathetic, terrified noises come out of her with every breath. “Jemma,” he says, touching her face, “I’m here. I’m right here.”

She doesn’t look at him - doesn’t even see him - she’s looking past him at-

His machete comes up. The thing moving in the shadows is at least two feet taller than him and definitely not human. “Stay back,” he orders over the endless string of pleas Jemma’s started up. “Just stay back and-”

Jemma screams.

While Will wasn’t looking, another of the things has moved in behind him to press a- a _something_ into Jemma’s arm like some horrifically oversized needle. Blue hands trail carefully down the length of the tube running into it while thick liquid pours along its length and into Jemma’s body. She screams, an endless cry of pain. She fights harder than ever against the bonds. Will tries to help her, takes aim at the line running into her arm, but his whole body freezes when he sees what happens next: Jemma’s body is … is crusting over. Something thick and dark is growing out of her pores, covering her up and impeding her motions.

“Stop it!” He cuts the line, runs at the alien behind it, machete at his shoulder. “Make it stop! You’re hurting her!”

It says something, words he doesn’t know but somehow he understands what they mean:  _Stronger than many of the rest._

The other one answers. _We knew that she would be. Let us hope she’s strong_ enough.

The stone surrounding Jemma begins to crack. Will’s heart leaps into his throat. His lungs seize in anticipation. What have they turned her into?

The room disappears. The aliens, their horror movie tech. Jemma too.

He yells her name again, it fades away over the distant sand, not even echoing back at him.

“I told you-”

He whirls, sees Jemma a stone’s throw away, still sleeping under Death’s watchful gaze.

“-she dreams.”

Will slides to his knees on her other side. He grabs her hand up, feels the warmth of it, presses it to his mouth to drink in the smell of her. He touches her hair, her face, her neck. She’s breathing. Her heart’s still beating. But he could swear his doesn’t start up again until she sighs into his touch.

He collapses over her, relief making him weak. His forehead touches her shoulder, and he wants, more than anything, to curl up next to her and stay here forever.

“It will happen,” It says.

Will flinches, gripping her tighter.

“What you have seen will come to pass if you allow her to return.”

He shakes his head, lets her warmth fill him up, give him strength to face Death. “You think I don’t know you? You think we haven’t been together here long enough for me to know just because you put something in my head doesn’t mean it’s real?”

Those lines in Austin’s face grow deep again, his skin tugs at the edges of the open wound. “I love her.”

Disgust twists Will’s gut. But it makes sense, doesn’t it? She’s Will’s hope, the one bit of heaven in this hell. But like Death said, he’s not the only prisoner here.

“If you really knew what that word meant,” he says slowly, carefully, because he’s sure if he doesn’t focus on every word and syllable they’ll turn into curses that’ll turn into punches and then they’re both fucked, “you would never want to keep her here. She doesn’t belong here. She’s too good for this place.”

It smiles, but for how wide it is and how gone Austin’s body is, it’s more the mouth opening around dead teeth in a horrific grimace. “Too good for us.”

Seeing as Will agrees ( _really_ agrees in Its case), he doesn’t answer.

It touches her one more time, draws those fingers it stole down her face, then heaves Austin’s body up. It wavers on feet probably further gone than the rest of it, but stays upright. “I’ll do it myself then.”

Will opens his mouth to argue, but the wind whips past him. He has to cover Jemma to protect her. The storm burns his skin and fills his ears, but he still hears a rumble like distant thunder buried beneath the rushing sand. (He’ll realize later what it was - the gorge cracking open into a canyon they could never hope to cross - but for now he’s only glad the sound and, presumably, Death are far away.) When it passes, when the sand goes still and eerie the way it only is after a storm, there’s no sign of Death at all.

“Will?” Jemma asks sleepily. Whatever It was doing to her, it’s stopped now. She pushes at his chest. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he says, but they both notice his hand lingering on her shoulder a little too long for it to be true. “Just the wind. We should get moving.”

 


End file.
